For users of ATI's Radeon gpu, like me, the next version of Linux Mint will probably be a "gotta-upgrade" situation. That's because Ubuntu 13.04 is supposedly going to have Linux Kernel 3.8, if not 3.9, and there is a big win for ATI users in Kernel version 3.8 in the form of enhancements to the open source video driver for Radeon hardware. That may mean an end to using the proprietary driver but I don't know.

Not supposedly...it DOES have kernel 3.8 (i am running an installed ubuntu 13.04 testing) and it has had the kernel now for well over a month...i get updated versions of it all the time...not sure if 13.04 will have 3.9 (as they haven't frozen that yet for the release in late April) but i can assure you it will have 3.8 as it already does

It has many other enhancements also...and good stuff for intels as well...also improvements in both performance and even better power management...that is why i couldn't resist the urge to install now...i am dual booting it with 12.10 (which is what your current mint is running) and i can tell you that 13.04 is a HUGE improvement over 12.10...

craig10x wrote:Not supposedly...it DOES have kernel 3.8 (i am running an installed ubuntu 13.04 testing) and it has had the kernel now for well over a month...i get updated versions of it all the time...not sure if 13.04 will have 3.9 (as they haven't frozen that yet for the release in late April) but i can assure you it will have 3.8 as it already does

It has many other enhancements also...and good stuff for intels as well...also improvements in both performance and even better power management...that is why i couldn't resist the urge to install now...i am dual booting it with 12.10 (which is what your current mint is running) and i can tell you that 13.04 is a HUGE improvement over 12.10...

Wow, I can't wait. I have intel in my laptop and my htpc (thank goodness), but ATI in two desktops, so all of what you mention sounds great to me. I'll definitely upgrade the desktop, not so sure about the laptop though.

Too bad for OpenSuse but they are sticking with 3.7.something or other, so 12.4 will not have 3.8 goodness. I was surprised that they are already releasing a release candidate, because the beta had a lot of problems when I tried it just a week ago. I'm leaning toward staying with the ubuntu family and that means Linux Mint (KDE) of course.

Supposedly, the upcoming version of Ubuntu will have a performance increase of something like 300%. That is their claim though, I believe, and benchmarks have been posted, but I haven't looked at them.

d00med wrote:Supposedly, the upcoming version of Ubuntu will have a performance increase of something like 300%. That is their claim though, I believe, and benchmarks have been posted, but I haven't looked at them.

Dayum! That will be very helpful. Well, they may be talking about the Kernel improvements to the intel and ATI video drivers, so that performance increase might not be all ubuntu's doing. Kind of makes not-upgrading a non-option though. Who doesn't want a big speed increase? It's going to be tough waiting, but I'm going to wait for the LM edition of KDE. It's gold as far as I'm concerned...

Yep...i checked out a live dvd of ubuntu 13.04 and was so impressed by the difference that kernel 3.8 is bringing to my laptop computer in terms of improvements in power management and speed that i did something i do not normally do, and that was hard installing a testing version before release...Also, 2 annoying bugs i have in 12.10 were gone with 13.04, so i just couldn't wait

When 13.04 is released, i am going to clean wipe my dual boot and install fresh...but i just wanted to get the benefits of it now... I kept 12.10 as a safety back up but despite getting lots of updates, have had no significant problems, it's been very reliable and stable for me...

I think there are improvements to the intel drivers, and on my laptop, even better power management...my fan tends to come on far less often then it did in 12.10 and even the kernel in that was a great improvement over previous editions...

As far as adding the 3.8 kernel to your current mint, i believe you could but i would tend to think it would be better to wait until the linux mint versions based on 13.04 arrive...I use to use mint but went back to ubuntu, but even normally i wait until the final release, and it's only for the reasons i previously noted that i jumped on to it early like this...

raymerjacque wrote:when you say good stuff for intel i assume you talking about the intel HD gfx chips ? and can you be a bit more specific ?

Cause intel HD gfx really sucks in linux and i see no options at all to install a better driver, or not that i could find, is there much improvement on that front ?

I don't remember. I read an article somewhere that I have since forgotten the specifics of. Probably I should have posted the link to one of the articles I read, but I lazy.

I have not had any difficulty playing video on my Sandy Bridge, Celeron-powered desktop, but I only use standard or enhanced def, not 720p or 1080p. There are some intel drivers one should download. I forget the specifics of that, too. I always have to google the article. I use VLC as a video player and spent quite a long time configuring it until everything was just the way I like. Probably the biggest strength and weakness of VLC are its many options, making it difficult to find some options, important ones like "disable screensaver when watching video," and "offload graphics processing to gpu". But I found that XBMC would crash the entire system all the time, so I opted for VLC. Mplayer I don't think is being developed very much and my favorite front-end GUI for Mplayer, SMplayer, went the ad-ware route in 2013. I think they signed a contract with Ask.com or some similar outfit to autoinstall the Ask search toolbar in Firefox. Yuck-o. That made me switch to VLC for Linux and MPC for Windows.

playing videos is fine, but i have noticed when i am doing heavy copying and installing and just generally put system under some pressure then my videos seem to have some lag and jitter ... and i have a Core I5 3470 and 8GB DDR3 ram ... this did not happen when i had a dedicated GPU in my system, but i can only get replacement GPU in about a week, so stuck with this GPU till then.

craig10x wrote:I think there are improvements to the intel drivers, and on my laptop, even better power management...my fan tends to come on far less often then it did in 12.10 and even the kernel in that was a great improvement over previous editions...

As far as adding the 3.8 kernel to your current mint, i believe you could but i would tend to think it would be better to wait until the linux mint versions based on 13.04 arrive...I use to use mint but went back to ubuntu, but even normally i wait until the final release, and it's only for the reasons i previously noted that i jumped on to it early like this...

I hear ya, but I've got to wait for the grapes to ferment...the wine to mature...the superb flavor of Linux Mint to emerge... in LM 15 KDE... so it will probably be summer for me. My cpu fan will just have to work hard until then.

running here 3.8.0-5.10 with xserver-xorg-video-intel 2.21.0+git and mesa 9.1~git from xorg-edgers in raring with cinnamon; it's a very interesting mix, no problems whatsoever but i wouldn't expect miracles: Phoronix for example has some benchmarks were the 3.8 is slower (in certain situations)one thing surprises me tho: cinnamon comes to a full desktop and stabilises with just a bit more than 200MB ram usage (no services added or removed)

A lot of improvements there, Radeon improvements, and not Intel specific.

Can't see a reason one couldn't upgrade to 3.8 in Mint 14 and get the benefits...

That's the exact article I was referring to. Thanks for posting it.

I'm happy about the kernel improvements, but as all I do is Firefox, low-def VLC, Dungeon Crawl and Jedit, it's kind of academic for me. But there probably will be a slightly reduced electricity bill, and taking into account all Linux users, that's a worthy contribution toward reducing electrical consumption, which I think is among the #1 priorities these days.